


Breakwater

by oldmythologies



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Sick Shiro (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 08:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15409317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldmythologies/pseuds/oldmythologies
Summary: The waves keep hitting and Shiro can't keep the pain away.Adam/Shiro, pre-Kerberos, when the disease hits hard and the night isn't easy.[Written while hiding in a storage closet after seeing the SDCC panel]





	Breakwater

**Author's Note:**

> So I saw the SDCC panel and I, sick, with a sprained ankle, working 9 hour days chained to a booth as a retail slave, found a few seconds to write this on my phone while hiding in our stock room. I'm shook, and all mistakes are my own.

He felt the line between the water and air, ripples spreading out from the place his toe dipped into the lake. Ripples in the water, ripples in his skin.

He shivered as the sensation spread, muscles tensing, releasing, and tensing again in waves, like the ripples in the water. He fell, and soon he wasn’t in the water at all, held up by waves of nothing; waves that kept crashing, and soon, Shiro was shivering, being pummeled over and over again by some unseen force.

The sweat on his skin pricked up in the air and he huddled in on himself, the lines between sleep and reality, the blanket sticking to his legs and arms, the waves and the water.

He bit down his whimper, grit his teeth through the pain, and refused to open his eyes. Deep breaths. The pain was in the dream, and he was fine. He was _fine_.

When another wave hit, Shiro was left retching, tears streaking the pillow and a wet spot where he had to hold the fabric between his teeth. If he didn’t open his eyes, didn’t make a noise, it wouldn’t be real. If he could breathe, it wouldn’t be real. Just keep breathing, keep biting. Keep breathing.

His body was trying to rip itself apart muscle by muscle, pulling in and snapping as the tension became too much to bear.

“…Takashi?” A voice cut through the dark. Adam, and then a hand on his back. The hand was not water, it was not a wave. It was warm, solid, a breakwater in the angry ocean, keeping the waves from shore. Shiro turned his face into the pillow and breathed, focused on the smell.

Sweat, Adam’s shampoo and his, the fresh linen scented fabric softener. Adam’s other hand came up and started kneading through the spasms. His nose pressed to the back of Shiro’s neck and legs lined up behind his, a hovering warmth that coaxed his muscles into calming down. Adam’s breath skated the edge of his shirt, hands moving not like waves but like the sun: consistent, steady, and god, so warm. Shiro tracked the movements before they happened and the muscles went with them.

The physical therapist helped Adam get this one down, helped him figure out which muscles would tense up and how to convince them to loosen.

“Deep breaths, Kashi.”

Shiro breathed.

“Do you need me to get your meds? This is the second time this week, maybe we should try?”

“‘m fine.” Shiro choked on the words. Adam’s hand stuttered before continuing.

“Kashi, don’t do this.”

“Adam, I—“

“I’ll go get the meds, don’t worry. Remember to breathe.”

The second his hands, his warmth left, the breakwater was gone and waves hit down his back, through his arms, up his legs. His neck craned back and with nothing between his teeth he couldn’t stop the whimper through shaking lips. Pills pressed between them, and then water, and he forced himself to swallow. Fingers threaded back through his hair, pulling it away from his forehead, and as Adam rounded the bed to take his place behind him, hands working over through angry tendons, Adam’s hands never left him.

He held back the waves.

The drugs hit his blood and the waves couldn’t reach him anymore. His shuddering slowed, attacks getting further and further apart until his knees were able to unfurl from his chest, until the wet streaks on the pillow started to bother him and he could wipe at his eyes.

“How’re you feeling?” Adam asked, night still slurring his voice.

“Tired.”

Adam hummed and settled back down behind him. “Me too. Sleep, babe.”

Shiro was more than content to close his eyes and fall back against his breakwater. Being sick wasn’t a problem for tonight, it _couldn’t_ be a problem for that night. They were too young, and Shiro was fine.

He was fine.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter [@oldmythos](https://twitter.com/oldmythos)
> 
> tumblr [@oldmythos](http://oldmythos.tumblr.com)


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